by Ivan Blake
“Heard that too.” Chris got into the Buick and slammed the door. Gillian pulled onto the main road, and with a weak smile and a tiny wave at Jackie, she drove off toward Lewis.
“I only wanted to help,” Jackie said softly as the Buick disappeared down the road.
* * * *
All morning, as the cast stumbled through their first full rehearsal of RottingwoodAsylum, the theater smelled like an open sewer. “What the hell is causing the stink in here?” Gilbert asked Manfred Arimanes, the only one among his company with the slightest clue about building maintenance. Manfred’s best guess was that frost coming out of the ground with spring breakup had shifted the sewer line from the theater to the city trunk under Main Street, and since the theater toilets were being used for the first time in decades, all their crap was now leaking into the soil immediately beneath the building.
“Well, check it out and do something!” Gilbert shouted again.
Sure enough, the smell in the basement was overpowering, and the dirt floor, which was usually packed hard, was now spongy. Manfred emerged from the cellar after just a few minutes and marched onstage mid-rehearsal to announce he was now pretty certain the sewer line had ruptured. The look on his face said, ‘told you, shithead’.
“So there’s nothing you can do?” Gilbert bellowed.
“No, not without a ton of cash—except maybe burn the whole goddamn place to the ground!”
Gilbert stared at Manfred like he wanted to rip the stupid smirk off the guy’s face. He turned to the cast and said, “So we make the best of it. We dump cat litter on the basement floor, and seal up the basement door. We burn incense, open every goddamn door and window in the place, and carry on. Meantime, I’ll find the money to fix the goddamn line.” He then stormed offstage and up the stairs to his apartment, knocking over everything in his path, then slamming the apartment door behind him. The cast stared at each other in silence. Then, when Gilbert shrieked like some hysterical child, “Christ, Dad! You’re dead and you’ve still got me cleaning up your shit!” they burst out laughing, and wandered outside for some fresh air.
Rather than join the cast on the sidewalk, Chris took the opportunity to follow Gilbert upstairs. When he hadn’t been needed onstage, Chris had searched every corner of the decrepit building for the missing bones. The only place he hadn’t searched was Gilbert’s apartment. He was now convinced there was nothing to be done but confront Gilbert. At the top of the stairs, he heard Gilbert sobbing, and for an instant, felt a twinge of sympathy for the guy, but then it passed, and he banged on the door.
“Go the fuck away,” Gilbert screamed.
“It’s Chris Chandler, I need to speak to you.”
“Can’t it wait? I...I’m trying to work out this sewer problem.”
“No, it can’t.”
Dolli opened the door. She looked cool, detached, like she was utterly indifferent to Gilbert’s histrionics. Gilbert, by contrast, was sprawled on a threadbare sofa with his face buried in a pillow. He raised his head to look at Chris with tears streaming down his face, and said, “You’re doing great, no problem with your performance, if that’s why you’re here. Now can you leave me alone?”
“I’m here about the bones.”
“What?” Gilbert swung his feet to the floor.
Dolli smiled, and moved away to sit on an old kitchen chair by the window. Gilbert stared at Chris. “You’re here about what?” he said.
“The bones you stole from the Monsegur cemetery, the bones you intend to sell on Monday.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And even if I did, why the hell would you care about a bunch of bones?”
“Because desecrating a grave tears the soul from Paradise and causes it unending pain.”
“That’s the stupidest pile of crap I’ve ever heard! Get out of here.”
“I’ve seen how the defiled suffer.”
“Get the hell out now!”
“Not without the bones.”
“I’m up here trying to save this theater, trying to do something good for this town, and you and the DuCalice bitch…” Gilbert was standing now. “You’ve tried to stop me at every turn. Well, even if I had the bones, you’d never see them. So get out.”
“Then I’ll be back soon to take them from you.”
“Blood!” Gilbert screamed. “Sweat, get up here!”
“No need, I’m going, but you’ve been warned. Oh, and you’ll need another psychiatrist.”
* * * *
What an absolutely shitty day! Freezing drizzle, filthy slush everywhere, the sky so dark it felt like nine at night rather than four in the afternoon. And to top it off, he’d spent three heartbreaking hours with the parents of a young man newly diagnosed with AIDS. Martin Koyman had covered some crappy stories in his thirty years of journalism, but few were as gut-wrenching as this new AIDS thing. Who the hell had even heard of AIDS eighteen months ago, and now everybody had.
People were terrified, and with reason. Koyman had recently gotten hold of a survey prepared for the Governor which painted a precise picture of the problem in Maine. As of March 1, there were 51 diagnosed cases of AIDS in the State affecting people as young as 12 and as old as 57. Of the 51 cases, 19 had already died, but the Governor’s panel had estimated that the real number of people infected could be as high as 5000. The rate of infection was alarming, but the individual stories were what had taken their toll on Koyman.
The mother he’d interviewed had been shattered. “I always knew our son was special.” She wept as she spoke. “It never occurred to me that he…was.... But I wouldn’t have cared. Why didn’t I know? I would still have loved him if he’d told me.”
“What makes me so goddamn mad,” the boy’s father had muttered through his tears, “is how they told our boy. They didn’t tell him he had a life-threatening disease. No, they said his illness was fatal. Just like that! Fatal! Like he was dead and gone already. Didn’t give him any hope. Nothing. How could they do that to the kid? To...to my poor boy?”
Martin took another sip of cold coffee and wiped his tears with a napkin. He’d crossed the street to the diner to review his interview notes because he’d known they’d rattle him, and sure enough, he was sitting there snuffling like a baby.
“You okay, Marty?” Grace, his waitress, asked. Grace had been serving Koyman his meals for nearly two decades and she’d earned the right to show interest in his well-being, and he loved her for it. Indeed, if she hadn’t been happily married to some trucker, he might have courted her himself, because she was Martin’s idea of a fine woman: sturdy, gorgeous big breasts, and an ample ass, and far more important, the loveliest smile and sense of humor when the moment called for it, and the most tender voice and gentlest touch from her hand when his heart was in the dumpster.
“Yeah, I’m okay, Grace. Just a tough story I’m working on, but thanks.”
“Actually, there’s someone on the phone for you. Your little assistant, I think. And she seems upset.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Take it in the back.”
Martin did business from the coffee shop so often, his colleagues called the place his office. And the owner of the diner had been so grateful for Martin’s steady trade over the years, he let him use the diner phone number as a second business line.
Koyman closed the door on the owner’s tiny office, sat on the corner of the cluttered desk, pressed nine, and said, “Jackie, what’s wrong?”
“Martin, I’m such a screw-up!”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay, just a wreck is all.”
“Where are you?”
“In Portland. I was on my way home when I realized I just can’t leave things the way they are back in Lewis.”
“All right, explain what’s happened.”
“I can’t tell you everything, not yet anyway, because it’s just too weird. But I was looking into the reasons for the Chandler boy’s injuries and I found something absolute
ly mind-blowing, so I looked deeper, and I ended up causing the poor kid some really awful trouble, and now I feel terrible for him. And then I learned there’s this backstory to Ed Balzer’s death and the attack on Rudy Dahlman, but there’s no way I can write it without looking like a complete nutcase and causing the Chandler kid even more pain. And then, on top of everything else, I learn about this case of grave robbery here in Lewis.”
“Another case of grave robbery? And is the Chandler boy involved as well?”
“Yes!”
“Look, Jackie, you’re a journalist. Do what journalists do; get the facts and then write the story to the best of your ability. Set personal feelings aside, and let somebody else decide whether to print the story or not.”
“I just don’t see how I can write the story without causing the Chandler kid more grief.”
“Okay, this is what we do. You come back to Bangor, get a decent night’s sleep, and then you tell me the whole story. We’ll work out the best way to tackle this together.”
“But I don’t have time. You wouldn’t believe how things are going crazy here. Martin, I really think I have to go back to Lewis. I have to do something to help Chris. I owe it to him.”
“Chris?” Martin asked.
“Chris Chandler.”
“Oh Christ, Jackie, you’re getting too involved. This can’t end well. Jackie?”
She’d already rung off.
* * * *
“Well, that’s set the cat among the pigeons,” Chris called out as the elevator door opened.
The three ladies—Rose, Gillian and Geraldine—were seated on Gothic-looking straight-backed chairs in a small circle, practically knee to knee, sipping white wine.
“What’s happened?” Rose asked.
“I’ve looked all over the theater for the remains,” Chris said. “Nothing. They might be in Gilbert’s apartment, but I can’t get in there. So I thought I’d rattle him. I said, ‘I know you’ve stolen bones from the Monsegur cemetery, and I want them back, and if you won’t give them to me, then I’m going to have to take them’.”
“But there’s eleven in his gang! And those twins, they’re like Frankenstein monsters!” Rose said with a look of concern.
“I could use Mallory.”
“Maybe to take out one, but not all of them,” Rose said. “And now Gilbert knows we want the bones, he might try to move them sooner.”
“I said I’d set the cat among the pigeons. I didn’t say I knew what to do about it.”
The ladies made space for a fourth in their circle. They sat in silence for a few moments until Rose said, “So, we need a plan of attack.”
“We need more than a plan, we need an army,” Chris said.
“Rose,” Geraldine said, “I could get my father riled up against Gilbert, maybe create a distraction, so Chris could get the bones out. Chris just has to tell me when. Meantime, I could keep watch on the alley behind the theater. I can see the alley from my bedroom. I’ll make sure they don’t try to move the bones early. Besides, they only have one vehicle to use—the lavender van. The hearse is up on blocks. So all we have to do is keep an eye on the van.”
Rose patted Geraldine’s hand. “I don’t tell you this enough, young lady. You’re a lioness, Geraldine Paget. I’m honored to call you my friend.”
Geraldine grinned, swallowed hard, and wiped away a tear. “I...I think I should go. Better be home when dad gets there, not that he ever notices.”
They hugged, said their goodnights, and Geraldine left. Rose then ushered Chris and Gillian into her kitchen for a dinner of Duck Cassoulet, a traditional Occitan dish which spoke to Rose of her homeland.
“Chris has been telling me about your heritage. It’s so fascinating,” Gillian said.
“My heritage?” Rose fixed her stare on Chris.
“I...I haven’t told her...what you said the other evening.”
“No?”
Not for the first time in Rose’s presence, Chris felt distinctly uncomfortable. The look on her face was a mix of amusement and suspicion. “Because you respected my confidence? Or because you think I’m mad?”
“I don’t think you’re mad.”
“So then why didn’t you tell her...my age?”
“Because...because, as you said, it’s not relevant. We’re going to fight for the bones of your people, no matter how old you are.”
“But that’s just it. They’re not just my people in the way all Mainers are your people. Or all Patriots fans are my people. They’re not the bones of my people. They’re the bones of my friends. They’re my family. They’re me.”
“I...I don’t understand,” Gillian said, obviously at sea given the strange turn in the conversation. “What does Rose’s age have to do with the bones?”
Chris sighed and drew himself up in his chair. “It’s like this,” he said. “Rose is...eight hundred years old. She isn’t a descendent of the forty-six Cathars who moved the treasure of Monsegur, she’s one of them, along with all the others buried in the Monsegur cemetery.”
Gillian drained her glass of wine. Chris half expected her to burst out laughing. Instead, she said calmly, “Now let me get this straight...”
For the next hour, Rose and Chris told Gillian the convoluted tale of the Cathar forty-six, showed her pictures and texts from Rose’s extensive collection, and explained the apparent power of the bone fragment from the lost ossuary of Mary Magdalene, even how it had protected Chris from flames when Rudy doused him in gasoline. What most fascinated Gillian was not the epic trials of the forty-six or how the power of the bone fragment might be used, but what living so interminably long must have been like.
“Like watching stone wear away to sand. Everyone I’ve ever loved is gone. Everything which was ever important to me is now dust. Everything I’ve ever tried to accomplish has come to nothing. Everything I’ve ever believed in is meaningless.”
Gillian whispered, “Couldn’t you maybe find love a second time?”
“Certainly, like Geraldine, for example. I love the poor dear girl like a daughter, but she’ll be gone in a blink of my eye. And I’ll be alone again. I can do nothing to keep the people I love around me, only their bones.”
“What about using your time to solve some great mystery or write a great book?”
“Just because we’ve lived so long hasn’t made us any more intelligent. If we had no talent to begin with, then time hasn’t provided it. Mozart created all his glorious music in a mere thirty-five years. My brother’s been trying to paint for eight hundred years and now is reduced to collecting the work of others. I once studied physics, gained some notoriety in fact, then the discipline shifted beneath me, and I’m forgotten because I wasn’t an original thinker to begin with. So now we have to keep disappearing every twenty years or so and then reappearing as our own children or as our own missing relatives, a ridiculous ruse, like a clown getting a pie in the face night after night after night.”
“Haven’t you been able to build a fortune? Maybe you could fund others to do great things,” Gillian asked.
“We’ve prospered and then become paupers because we’ve made the same mistakes as everyone else. We have no more insight into what’s coming than you do, so now the only treasures we keep are the things that matter to us, the things that keep our memories alive, things like our children’s toys, our pictures, our diaries. You see, that’s the other terrible thing about living forever. Your memory is no better than the next person’s, and after many centuries, all we’re left with is a maddening jumble of half-remembered faces and events. It’s like a picture album tossed into the wind. The captions are lost so you’ve no way to reassemble the narrative. So now we keep what is most precious to us in the tower, and I’ve made it my purpose to guard the memories of my community until...whenever.
“Anyway, that’s why I don’t get involved in other people’s affairs anymore. I’m not trying to learn except about my own past. I’m not trying to get close to others, except to people
who strike me as exceptional. You see, love is only for people who have a life, and I have no life, just time. You, on the other hand, have no time, but you do possess what I’ve lost. You have passion. You have dreams.”
“Nearly a thousand years of living must have taught you something,” Chris said.
Rose sat back in her chair, took some time to think, and then said, “I suppose the one thing I’ve learned is that death somehow purifies us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve watched countless people die—loved ones, strangers, the evil, and the good. I’ve looked deep into their eyes as they drifted from the shore, as their skin turned the color of unfired porcelain, as their last breath rattled in their chest, as they glimpsed the other side for just an instant, and then were gone. And what I’ve seen in their eyes is that death seems to strip away all the impurities of life. It strips away the pretense, renders us what we truly are, like refining silver. In their last moments, the loving become the very essence of love, the kind become kindness incarnate, and the joyful become joy. Equally, the bitter become consumed by their bitterness, and the sad become the embodiment of sorrow. That’s what I’ve learned in a thousand years. And about myself? I have learned that my own death is like a lighthouse at a harbor mouth on a distant coast, out there, brilliant, shining across the dark waters, but forever beyond the reach of my boat, and I’m left to wonder every day of my interminable existence, what in God’s name am I guilty of to be punished this way?”
* * * *
The amulet gave Chris the confidence to get behind the wheel of the Buick Roadmaster for the first time since the day Mallory Dahlman died. That fateful morning had begun so incredibly well, driving into Bemishstock with Gillian by his side, the two of them proud and ready to proclaim their relationship to the world. Then came the news of Mallory’s death and their intimacy had come to a screeching halt. Now, here they were once again, rolling down a country road, side by side in the old Buick, and once again about to take their relationship to a whole new level. Chris was in seventh heaven. Gillian, however, was deep in thought.
“It can’t be true, can it, what Rose said?”